Home automation generally refers to the automation of the home and of activities associated with the home. It may include automatic control of lighting and blinds, HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning), electrical appliances and electronic devices, security systems including alarms and door locks, health care, sprinkler system, pet feeding, houseplants, pool systems, among other systems which may be found in a home. The control may be at the level of simple remote control of appliances to complex computer/micro-controller based networks with varying degrees of intelligence and automation.
Some of these home activities may be simple activities such as turning on a light in a room at the same time every day, while others may be much more complex such as sensing the presence of a person in a room and adjusting lighting, temperature and music volume in the room taking into consideration factors such as the day of the week and the time of day. Home automation systems may additionally provide increased quality of life for elderly and disabled persons who might otherwise require caregivers for assistance in carrying out home activities, or in some cases even require institutional care.
The elements of a home automation system may include sensors, such as temperature sensors, light sensors, humidity sensors, CO2 sensors, motion detectors, smoke detectors and others; actuators which may include electronic valves, switches, relays, and motors; and a controller which may be a centralized controller and/or multiple intelligent devices installed around the home.
The controller(s) may be preprogrammed to control the actuators responsive to information received from the sensors, or may learn to control the actuators by associating real-time human interactions with the system with information received from the sensors. One or more human-machine interface devices may be required so that the residents of the home may interact with the system for monitoring and control. The interface devices may include a specialized terminal, or may be a computerized device having display capabilities such as a personal computer or a laptop computer, or may include an application running on a smart phone or tablet computer. Communication between the different elements of the home automation system may be over dedicated wiring, a wired network, a wireless network, or a combination of any of the former.
A home automation system including multiple intelligent devices distributed around the home is described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,865,428 B2, “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR PROVIDING DISTRIBUTED CONTROL OF A HOME AUTOMATION SYSTEM” to Gonzales et al. Described therein is “a method and apparatus for providing distributed control of a home automation system is provided. Each device participating in a home automation system is equipped with control logic for providing distributed control. Through the control logic, each device maintains scene definitions describing the state of the device for each scene in which it participates. When any device in the system receives a request to launch a scene, such as a button press on one of the devices, the device broadcasts a scene state change message to all devices within the home automation system. The scene state change message identifies to each device a particular scene that should be launched. Each device in the system receives the message and determines whether the device is a participant in the scene. If the device is a participant in the scene, the device adjusts its state according to a scene definition stored in the device associated with the scene. The device may adjust a controlled electrical load, such as a light, according to the scene definition by turning the load on, off, or setting the load to some intermediate value”.
Home automation systems may be self-learning and may include a controller which, based on environmental changes may autonomously make decisions regarding monitoring and controlling conditions in one or more rooms within a home. Such a home automation system is described in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. US 2012/0310415 A1, “CONTROL PANEL FOR CONTROL SYSTEM AND A CONTROL SYSTEM”, to Raestik et al. Described therein is “a control panel and controlling system for adjusting environmental conditions of at least one location, wherein the location has desired environmental conditions. The system comprises equipments controlled by controlling means for changing and/or maintaining the environmental condition of the locations. The controlling means is adapted to provide controlling parameters to equipments for adjusting the environmental condition of said location. The system includes a control panel including at least one sensor, whereby the environmental condition is controlled on the basis of the signal received from the sensor”.